a cut out and keep guide: mid-week meals for the frazzled and/or time-poor

I've been somewhat of a mentaloid these past few weeks, if truth be told. There's been bugger all cooking going on for one thing, save for the odd sausage or rasher - on one particularly dire day I ate nothing but peanut butter, bread and porridge. The furthest afield I've managed to go shopping is the local Tesco Express. Yesterday it took me five hours to summon the fortitude required to have a shower.

So I wouldn't blame you if you were to dismiss any advice from me regarding cooking when you've no time as being about as much use as pheromone spray on Gregg Wallace. But it wasn't that many years ago that I too was working 50-60 hours a week, feeling knackered when I got home. Is it worth cooking for yourself when you can't really be arsed? Abso-fucking-lutely.

This really began, though, as a kind of memo to my currently listless self, an attempt to revive my culinary mojo, a reminder that if I could rend asunder arse from sofa for just long enough to jot down a few ingredients and walk up the road to the shops then: a) I could knock out a delicious, simple supper in a matter of minutes and b) getting back to a little kitchen action would, of itself, act as an anti-depressant, a mood-enhancer.

I reckon that if you can find a couple of hours at the weekend to plan your week's meals and get to the shops you'll actually be saving time that you'd otherwise spend during the week dithering in a supermarket every evening on the way home from work.

And how about this for a time-saving tip: stop watching cookery shows on TV and use the time to cook for yourself instead. Just a thought.

And of course I needn't really mention that by cooking your own meals rather than buying ready-made or takeaway you'll be saving serious coinage.

Anyhow, below are ten suggestions for quick mid-week suppers. That's two week's worth.

Mojo restored, and being time-rich, I'm off now to buy the ingredients for a meal that is always one of the first things I cook after emerging from the pit of despond - cod and white bean stew.

Hello kitchen. I've missed you.

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